John Gee's Blog of Lamentations

[_Res Ipsa]

Hermes, thanks for posting the link to your paper. Lots of food for thought there.

What link?

Argh! Twas California Kid. My bad.

[_Always Changing]

I'm reading it! I am reading it!

Interesting. Big words and complex thoughts. One could just about turn it into a diagram of the development of Christianity to the Reformation and beyond.

The Anabaptists missed the point that in their rejection of Catholic tradition and acceptance of the Bible, they were accepting as scripture what was the result of the development of early Catholic tradition. The Mormons, in their rejection of the Bible as the final say-so of scripture, began the process all over again. This included the redevelopment of early Gnostic lines of thought, which had been rejected by the developing Catholic Church. However, those Gnostic beliefs resulted in practices which were contrary to basic ethical concerns, or, at the very least, had no instructional value in how to live one's life. The development of Catholic Christianity was based on trial and error (with some inspiration). Pragmatics-- what works. The Constantine issue exemplifies one of the biggest errors-- that of theocracy. But there were islands during that time-- great thinkers who could break beyond the politics. Mormonism replicates that error of theocracy, as well as the one of Gnosticism. Now it duplicates the error of the Jews of Jesus' time-- that of thinking that rigid practice of rites and rules gains heaven for the individual.

[_Philo Sofee]

Sethbag:

He wins by changing the conversation from whatever it was about before, to about DCP. You guys think he does this just to stroke his ego. That's possible, I concede. But by changing the subject to being about DCP, we're no longer talking about the things that actually matter in the question of whether the church is true or not.

Actually, this is a seriously good insight.

[_Kishkumen]

It is wonderful to see so many intelligent and eloquent participants here on MDB. Hermes, CaliforniaKid, and others are among the reasons that I doubt I will ever leave this board permanently. I am impressed with your thoughts and your writing ability.

[Guest]

Yeah, CaliforniaKid's writing skills have improved since he wrote that piece.

[_Nightlion]

I recently read a neat essay by a former Christian explaining how Christianity is precisely what deconverted him. He was too Christian not to be an atheist. I resonate with this response. I did not convert away from Mormonism. I became too Mormon for Mormonism. I realized that I was committed to the truth (as I perceive it), no matter what. Do what is right and let the consequences follow. As a Mormon, I really believed that, and I still do, even though it has cost me participation in the kingdom of God on earth (where we don't like truth that isn't useful to people like Boyd Packer and Dallin Oaks). I believed that truth was accessible, that I could be honest with myself and others about it, and that such honesty is vitally important for a good society (Mormon Zion). I put my hand to the plow and started working away before I realized what the harvest would be. ... I had a naïve belief that things would work out, that God had my back, that I could trust the truth. I still believe that, I guess. Even if the truth doesn't keep me healthy and happy over a long life safe in the heart of modern LDS Mormondom, as I once thought it would, I am still committed to it. Even if the truth isn't pretty the way I was taught to think it was, I already plighted my troth.

This is exactly how I feel about my own deconversion, and I have met so many others who feel the same way. Many people who deconvert do so only after going through a fundamentalist phase. One friend told me he dug so deep he came out the other side. When believers tell atheists that their problem is that they took the faith too literally, I always find myself nodding my head because this is so close to the truth. I'd say "seriously" rather than "literally," though. I was never a full-fledged literalist, and by the time I finally apostatized, my faith was about as non-literal as it could possibly get. My problem wasn't literalism. My problem was commitment. I was absolutely committed to the idea that there was a core of truth in my religion, and that it was my sacred duty to find out what that truth was, and what its implications were for my life. Eventually this commitment to religious truth destroyed itself, so that there was nothing of religion left; only truth.

Years ago, I published a paper on this subject of Christian commitment deconstructing itself. Here's a portion of what I wrote:

Although evangelical Protestants are at the forefront of the reactionary movement against the pluralist deconstruction of Christian exclusivism, deconstruction is not a phenomenon that should be alien to them. The Protestant Reformation, after all, was essentially a deconstruction of the medieval Catholic synthesis; it detected a tension between tradition and scripture and allowed these forces to work radically against each other, thereby producing a new synthesis and a renewal of the tradition. It was this Protestant act of deconstruction, in fact, that unleashed the powerful forces of humanist textual criticism upon the sources of theology, resulting at first in the very desirable unmasking of the pseudepigraphal Donation of Constantine, and later in the less desirable unmasking of pseudepigraphal texts within the Bible itself. As long as these methods were directed against the distinctive sources of Catholic orthodoxy, they were hailed by Protestants as redemptive; now that they are leveled against the distinctive sources of Protestant orthodoxy, they are bemoaned as invasive and unchristian. The truth, of course, is that the critiques of tradition and the Bible are merely two sides of the same coin; the latter is merely an extension of the former. The Bible, as many critics of Protestantism have pointed out, is itself a product of tradition, and its authority is therefore undermined by the radical anti-traditionalism that was unleashed by the Reformers. There is, then, a real sense in which the liberal Enlightenment project of paring biblical religion down to find the essential kernel beneath the husk was a quintessentially Protestant one.

And you all still wonder why I remain here.
Hermes what do you know about serious Mormonism? Would you like to know more?

[_Nightlion]

Sethbag:

He wins by changing the conversation from whatever it was about before, to about DCP. You guys think he does this just to stroke his ego. That's possible, I concede. But by changing the subject to being about DCP, we're no longer talking about the things that actually matter in the question of whether the church is true or not.

Actually, this is a seriously good insight.

The character of Joseph Smith is also a purposeful ruse.
What Mormon insiders fear most is the eminent emergence of a REAL ZION. Where the LDS are punked to the shame of their arrogant excellent in absolute hypocrisy.

182 years and no Zion. No knowledge of it. No prudent understanding of how it MUST happen. Nothing but money spent for the perpetuation of more money collected. To be cast at the feet of a robust pretense of prophets and apostles, which are not either prophets nor apostles. They do not even know how to magnify their undeserved callings.

Tis the greatest farce show in the universe. A comedy/tragedy where all eternity is gathering interest in how Zion shall arise against all odds and how the secrets of great abominations shall come out and bring down the haughty pride of earth's greatest wickedness.

[_harmony]

182 years and no Zion.

Actually closer to 2000, but your mileage may vary.

[_Nightlion]

182 years and no Zion.

Actually closer to 2000, but your mileage may vary.

There was a small Zion among the believing Jews until it got overrun by the Gentile dogs.
And you forgot about the Zion of the Americas too.

Pray the Lord sends faith into the earth to realize a true Zion that the Lord might have a people to come to and be amongst before his return in glory and power.

[_Hermes]

Nightlion, I am not sure what you mean by "serious Mormonism," but you are welcome to examine my opinions and experience expressed elsewhere online.

http://argeiphontes.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-theology-of-mormon-christian-atheist.html
http://argeiphontes.blogspot.com/p/my-personal-articles-of-faith.html

http://argeiphontes.blogspot.com/2012/06/mormon-antichrist-20.html
http://argeiphontes.blogspot.com/2012/06/credo-quia-absurdum.html
http://argeiphontes.blogspot.com/2012/05/michels-iron-law-of-oligarchy.html

I might give you more, but there is more than enough rope here to hang me as a heretic (as I suspect you will want to). If you want my earlier posts, which go into my discovery (1) that the Great Apostasy never happened and (2) that Joseph Smith and other early Mormons were not like their modern avatars in LDS church films, then feel free to poke around more on my blog.